Mike Holmgren will return for a final season as coach of the Seattle Seahawks.

Seattle’s veteran coach announced his decision Tuesday, after spending the weekend with his wife at their offseason Arizona home.

“Kathy and I came to this decision to finish my contract,” said Holmgren, who had hinted at retirement for weeks. “This will be my last year. We are going to make it the best year ever.

“And then probably after that, I will take a little time off – but not yet. We are going to go after it hard.”

Seattle, which won its fourth consecutive NFC West title, was eliminated by Green Bay in the divisional playoffs.

Holmgren’s record with Green Bay and Seattle, where he arrived in 1999, is 170-110, one win behind former Redskins coach Joe Gibbs for 10th in NFL history. Holmgren is 86-68 in nine seasons with Seattle. He passed Chuck Knox this season for most victories by a Seahawks coach.

Seattle will return the core of its team next season, and five of the Seahawks’ six division titles have come under Holmgren.

The Seahawks have a likely heir to Holmgren in place in Jim Mora.

Soon after Mora was fired as head coach of the Atlanta Falcons on New Year’s Day, 2007, Holmgren added him to the staff as the assistant head coach and defensive backs coach. Mora, 46, led Atlanta for three seasons and went to the NFC championship game in his first season there.

“The transition beyond this year should be really smooth. The organization is healthy,” Holmgren said.

He didn’t mention Mora by name, leaving talk of his successor “for another press conference. I won’t be there.”

Holmgren also said he will make some changes to his coaching staff on the offensive side.

Offensive line coach Bill Laveroni will not be back, a move not unexpected with the struggles Seattle had running effectively the last two seasons. Laveroni had been the Seahawks line coach since 2004.

Laveroni’s assistant, Keith Gilbertson is being shifted to receivers coach, after Nolan Cromwell left to become the offensive coordinator at Texas A&M for new Aggies’ coach Mike Sherman. Offensive assistant Gary Reynolds also is joining Sherman’s staff.

Tickets a Super item

It’s bearing down on them, more ominous than Bill Belichick’s defense, more insistent than a Tom Brady spiral. The New York Giants must prepare to fend off the onslaught of Super Bowl ticket requests from relatives, friends and total strangers.

The crush of ticket requests is sure to blitz Big Blue as it prepares for its Feb. 3 showdown in the Arizona desert with the undefeated New England Patriots.

In addition to family and close friends, the players fully expect to be hit up by people they’ve never met, claiming to be long-lost friends, kindergarten classmates, or third cousins once-removed.

“That’s natural, but you’ve got to be very strict with the tickets,” said wide receiver Amani Toomer, who went through it during the run-up to the 2001 Super Bowl, in which the Giants lost to the Baltimore Ravens.

“Sometimes it’s better for people to just watch it on TV,” he said with a smile. “That’s what I’m going to tell them.”

Brad Benson, a member of the Giants’ 1986 championship team, said he was besieged by ticket-seekers before New York’s victory over the Denver Broncos.

“It was ridiculous – you couldn’t stop for gas without someone saying, `By the way, can you get me some tickets?’ It was wild,” said Benson, who now owns a car dealership in New Jersey. “I got a call from a guy in a prison in upstate New York asking if I could get him a ticket to the game. I asked if he had a parole date coming up.”

Ratings way up

With huge stars and popular teams, the NFL’s conference championship games earned big ratings.

The NFC title game drew a 29.0 national rating and 43 share on Fox. The New York Giants’ 23-20 overtime win over the Green Bay Packers on Sunday night attracted the highest rating for a conference championship since Green Bay-Carolina earned a 30.1/58 in 1997.

The undefeated New England Patriots’ 21-12 win over the heavy underdog San Diego Chargers drew a 25.7/46 on CBS. That was up 2 percent from the early game last year, the Chicago-New Orleans NFC championship that attracted a 25.1/45.

Combined, the two games averaged 49.7 million viewers, the most for a conference championship weekend in 13 years. The Chargers-Steelers and Cowboys-49ers matchups averaged 49.9 million viewers in 1995.

NFL fights lawsuit

The NFL is citing the same jurisdictional grounds the Tennessee Titans used to get out of a lawsuit filed by a man paralyzed in a shooting outside a strip club minutes after a melee involving suspended player Adam “Pacman” Jones.

Clark County (Nev.) District Court judge Jessie Walsh is due to hear arguments Feb.20 on the league’s claim that Nevada courts lack the reach to hold the league responsible in the wounding of Tommy Urbanski last February outside the Minxx Gentleman’s Club. In documents filed Jan. 16, league lawyers point to Walsh’s Jan. 9 ruling releasing the Titans from the lawsuit filed by Urbanski, a former club employee.

“Plaintiff’s attempt to hold the NFL hostage in this case should prompt the same response,” the league said.

Around the league

Buccaneers: Coach Jon Gruden was rewarded for Tampa Bay’s worst-to-first turnaround in the NFC South with a three-year contract extension that runs through the 2011 season. Gruden, who had one year left on a contract that was extended after the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl five seasons ago, earned about $4.3 million in 2007. General Manager Bruce Allen also was given a three-year extension, keeping him under contract for another four seasons. Gruden and Allen were attending Senior Bowl workouts in Mobile, Ala., and unavailable for comment. Financial terms were not announced. The Bucs rebounded from a 4-12 finish in 2006 to go 9-8 and win the NFC South. It was the team’s third division title in six years under Gruden.

Redskins: Jim Fassel has become a top candidate for the Washington Redskins coaching job after a third interview with owner Dan Snyder. The former New York Giants coach met with Snyder on Monday, according to a person familiar with the selection process.

Chargers: Hall of Famer James Lofton was fired as San Diego’s wide receivers coach, a surprising move considering the way Chris Chambers and Vincent Jackson played down the stretch. “I was stunned by the news,” Lofton said several hours after he was given word by Coach Norv Turner. “I wasn’t really given a concrete explanation, just that they wanted to go in a different direction. I really don’t know. Like I said, I was stunned, surprised. I didn’t see it coming. It was a job that I loved, the team was doing great, I loved the players I was getting to coach.” Lofton had been with the Chargers six seasons and had one season remaining on his contract. The Chargers also fired running backs coach Matt Simon, who just finished his first year on the job.

Broncos: Safety John Lynch was named to his ninth Pro Bowl, replacing the injured Bob Sanders (Indianapolis).

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